TWO:"Did the legs go on kicking?" said Gregg, quickly.

TWO:��Oh, you just wait till he does, and that won��t be a very long wait,�� she said. ��You think you��ll be shy and nervous, but you won��t when your turn comes. I��ll be bound you like him well enough really.��BELFRY IN COURT-YARD OF TEMPLE, SHOWING THE STYLE OF A JAPANESE ROOF. BELFRY IN COURT-YARD OF TEMPLE, SHOWING THE STYLE OF A JAPANESE ROOF.

TWO:The road wound among the fields where the rice was growing luxuriantly, and where now and then they found beans and millet, and other[Pg 165] products of Japanese agriculture. The cultivation was evidently of the most careful character, as the fields were cut here and there with little channels for irrigation; and there were frequent deposits of fertilizing materials, whose character was apparent to the nose before it was to the eye. In some places, where the laborers were stooping to weed the plants, there was little more of them visible than their broad sun-hats; and it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to believe they were a new kind of mushroom from Brobdingnagian gardens. Hills like sharply rounded cones rose from each side of the narrow valley they were descending; and the dense growth of wood with which the most of them were covered made a marked contrast to the thoroughly cleared fields. The boys saw over, and over, and over again the pictures they had often seen on Japanese fans and boxes and wondered if they were realities. They had already learned that the apparently impossible pictures we find in Japanese art are not only possible, but actual; but they had not yet seen so thorough a confirmation of it as on this day's ride.The spectators gave themselves up wholly to the fun. It must have seemed to them that this extraordinary cricketer was also gifted with a sense of humour, however eccentric; and that his nonsensical action was intended by way of retaliation for the ironic cheers that had greeted his running at all. Nobody, except Arthur Withers, realised that the Clockwork man run thus far because for some reason he had been unable to stop himself. It may be remarked here that many of the Clockwork man's subsequent performances had this same accidental air of humour; and that even his most grotesque attitudes gave the observer an impression of some wild practical joke. He was so far human, in appearance and[Pg 35] manner, in spite of those peculiar internal arrangements, which will be dealt with later, that his actions produced an instantaneous appeal to the comic instinct; and in laughing at him people forgot to take him seriously.

TWO:"Because," said the Doctor, trying hard to control the twitching of his features, "it's too terrible. What I have seen to-night is not fit for mortal eye to behold. It's inhuman. It's monstrous!"At the garden gate the most of the company passed on into the house, Gholson among them. His face, as for an instant he turned aside to me, betrayed a frozen rage; for Ferry and Charlotte tarried just at our backs, she seated on the "horse-block" and he leaning against it. A stir of air brought by the rising moon had blown out their light. Gholson left me, and Camille waited at my side while I tried to read by the flare of her guttering candle. "Come, my dear," said Miss Harper from half-way up the walk, but Charlotte called Miss Harper.

TWO:"You must explain that to me. I've forgotten the formula."There had been times, during those journeys[Pg 42] to and fro, when Gregg found it difficult to save himself from outbursts of laughter. He had to bite his lip hard in the effort to hold in check an imagination that was apt to run to extremes. From one point of view it had certainly been absurd that this awkward being, with his apparently limited range of movement, should have managed in a few seconds to lay out so many healthy, active men. By comparison, his batting performance, singular as it had seemed, faded into insignificance. The breathless swiftness of the action, the unerring aim, the immense force behind each blow, the incredible audacity of the act, almost persuaded Gregg that the thing was too exquisitely comic to be true. But when he forced himself to look at the matter seriously, he felt that there were little grounds for the explanation that the Clockwork man was simply a dangerous lunatic. The flight at a preposterous speed, the flying leap over the hurdle, the subsequent acceleration of his run to a pace altogether beyond human possibility, convinced the young undergraduate, who was level-headed enough, although impressionable, that some other explanation would have to be found for the extraordinary occurrence.

TWO:��Well, if you had heard her say it������ she began."Nothing; I didn't start. 'Coupled with somebody's name,' you say. With whose? Go on."

TWO:"After we left Sha-ho the country became rough, and the road grew steadily worse. Our ponies were pretty sure-footed, but they stumbled occasionally, and Frank narrowly escaped a bad fall. The pony went down all in a heap and threw Frank over his head. He fell on a soft spot, and so was not injured; but if the accident had happened six feet farther on,[Pg 383] or six feet farther back, it would have thrown him among the rough stones, where there were some very ugly points sticking up.

TWO:I went on to say that she seemed now to have learned, herself, that it was on this shoal she grounded at every low water of her physical and mental powers; as when over-fatigued, for instance; and that I should not wonder if she had bound herself never again at such a time to let her judgment follow her impulses. He laid his hand on me: "Stop; stop; you stab too deep. I thought to take her by surprise at that very point, and right there she has countermined. My God! can it be that I am served only right?"